Boy who spent 2 weeks in coma is now back home

Samuel Gross, the eight-year-boy who spent two weeks in a coma after being swept into a culvert by floodwaters, has returned home.

"He's a little tired, and a little weak. But otherwise, he's doing just awesome," said his aunt, Susan Gross.

She said he was welcomed home on Thursday with a celebration that included a lot of hugs.

Samuel was taken to hospital in critical condition on April 9 after he stepped onto a flooded culvert and was sucked into it by the force of the flowing water. The incident happened on the Westroc Hutterite Colony near Portage la Prairie.

Witnesses said the boy was playing with friends and thought he was stepping onto a road covered with about 10 centimetres of water.

Residents on the colony managed to pull Samuel out of the culvert and an Alberta-based STARS (Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society) Air Ambulance, contracted by the Manitoba government and operated out of Winnipeg during the flood, transported him to the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg.

Initial reports said that he was under the freezing water for five to 10 minutes. On April 24, when doctors announced Samuel had emerged from the coma, they noted the boy had actually been under water for 20 minutes.

Medical personnel worked on him for two hours before his heart responded and started beating again, said Murray Kesselman, director of the Health Sciences Centre pediatric intensive care unit.

Samuel survived because the frigid waters made his body and his brain very cold before his heart stopped, Kesselman said in April.

All of those events have to happen at the right time, in the right sequence, said Kesselman. Otherwise, the outcome would have been much different.